Fiesta Season

So with fiesta season nearing i have been busy clocking up hours. Katie's balloon has a fresh airworthiness certificate so i have been giving strata some flight time as a "helpful boyfriend". Haven't flown it in 8 months so it was defiantly an experience.

A couple of things have happened in the last month. I finally sat down at the sewing machine and made a little bit of progress. The sewing machine is now set up for 4 layers of nylon. Its a hell of a process to dial it in but once its done in theory you shouldn't need to touch it. My scrap piece of fabric shows the amount of work involved in getting the tension right.

It has taken me another month to sit down again at the machine after getting everything right. I have now moved onto practicing my folding skills with the assistance of the folder. I have a few choice words to say about the french lap seam however i wont put those in writing. The professionals make it look easy but i guess it will be like riding a bicycle. After my first attempt i decided to test the strength of everything. Had the sewn fabric over a bar with my hanging and it didn't even phase it! Throw into the mix 1100kg break strain load tape and you can understand balloons are over engineered.

Sadly i have only spent about half an hour at the machine trying to fold but leading into fiesta season its time to start focusing on everything regarding flying. Looking forward to making my debut as a pilot at Wiararapa and Balloons over Waikato. I have senior pilots stepping aside to let me take their balloons out which is very daunting but its going to be a great experience and i just hope i can meet their expectations.
I have some new bits of kit in my pilot bag that i am looking forward to getting some use out of around fiesta season. Might have to do a bag breakdown at some point.

Hello 2015

Well 2014 is finally finished which is a good reason to give an update on the balloon. In December i finished up cutting the final nylon panels of the balloon. I still have a roll of nomex to cut however that will be cut later once all 20 gores have been assembled. There are a few reasons for this but the main one being nomex frays easily and the less movement it has before sewing the cleaner and easier it will be to sew. The other reason leans more towards the frustration of cutting it out.

On top of this i placed an order with Cameron Balloons for crown rings and temp flags before i left for Japan which also arrived in December. I received one last item since my last update which was a borrowed seam folder. With that crucial piece i have no excuse to not sew the balloon. I guess this is part of my procrastination but i believe once i sit down at the machine ill get a little bit done.

The panels have been sorted into their gores which will make it easier sew once i tune in the sewing machine and start the sewing of the balloon. As i have mentioned time and time again everything with balloons is super-sized including the time taken to organize everything. Took me a couple of nights just to label each corner and sort the individual panels into gores.